The evolution of computers and networking technologies from high-cost, low performance data processing systems to low cost, high-performance communication, problem solving, and entertainment systems has provided a cost-effective and time saving means to lessen the burden of performing every day tasks such as correspondence, bill paying, shopping, budgeting and information gathering, etc. For example, a computing system interfaced to the Internet, by way of wire or wireless technology, can provide a user with a channel for nearly instantaneous access to a wealth of information from a repository of web sites and servers located around the world. Such a system, as well, allows a user to not only gather information, but also to provide information to disparate sources. As such, online data storing and management has become increasingly popular.
For example, collaborative social networking websites have exploded world-wide. These sites allow users to create remotely stored profiles including personal data such as age, gender, schools attended, graduating class, places of employment, etc. The sites subsequently allow other users to search the foregoing criteria in an attempt to locate other users—be it to find a companion with similar interests or locate a long lost friend from high school. Users of the websites can specify friends and link friend pages to their site. Additionally, on-line gaming offers a similar functionality where users can play video games with each other on-line and specify a number of friends with whom they prefer to game, for example. A gaming service is provided to manage aspects of this environment and log data accordingly. Data can relate to on-line gaming instances, such as game played, time spent, communication level, high score, winner of the game, etc. Additionally the friend information can be stored to connect users via a social link.
Other websites, such as some retail shopping websites, offer the functionality of providing recommended products to users based on some algorithm. One type of algorithm is collaborative filtering which attempts to find items of interest for a user based on preferences of other users, the users are the world of users that utilize the website. As an example, a site can offer an additional item for sale based on what other users who bought the same original item as the current user subsequently bought. Another example is a social filtering algorithm that uses explicit social relationships between users to find items of interest.